Handcrafted Soap with Salt

You have heard about them, read about them, seen advertisements about them.

SPA SOAPS

Just what is a "spa soap" anyway?

Spa soap can be a variety of different items that make it a "spa experience" when you use it.

Most spa soaps contain ingredients that exfoliate the skin, or contain clays that cleanse the pores, or certain types of oils that claim increased benefits to the skin. Usually, it is a soap that contains just a "little extra" to make you feel pampered.

Recently, I've created my own version of the SPA SOAP. One of them is pictured above. Margarita Lime at the top and Summer Fling just above this sentence. It contains a delightful lime citrus fragrance along with sea salt and some bentonite clay. The soap texture is a bit different than other soaps. Because of the amount of salt, it is a hard bar of soap. It also has a grainy texture which may be a bit harsh for your face but wonderful for your body. The clay can firm and tighten the skin but also gives the soap a unique textural quality as well. Clays give the soap a "slip" to it that folks love when they are shaving. The lather tends to be a bit more sudsy/creamy rather than overly bubbly.

And as for the salt on top...well, it is just there for the looks. After all, what's a Margarita without the salt around the rim?

All my spa soaps have been made use a cold process method. The soap barely gets above room temperature during the entire process, which allows for it to cure more slowly and retain better fragrance properties.

(pictured above is Butt Naked Spa Soap)

You will not find this soap available on my website until the end of May, 2010. So, get ready for a real "SPA EXPERIENCE"!

Coconut Milk Soap

The picture above is a simplistic looking soap. No additional color was added. There are no swirls, no funky soap chunks or anything else to enhance the looks of it.

Instead of water, coconut milk was added as the sole water based liquid.

The process in which I made this soap is a bit different than what I normally do also. Most soap processing requires the soap to go through a chemical stage that causes the soap to "gel". In this process, I attempted to prevent the soap to go through that particular phase by keeping it chilled and preventing it from heating up. There are several reasons for this: by keeping the soap cooled down and preventing gel stage, the soap slows down in its chemical reaction, causing it to cure much more slowly. If any fragrance or essential oils were added to the soap, it will help to maintain the original fragrance of the oil.  Furthermore, the soap's texture is somewhat different too. It has a translucent quality to the soap which may add to some interesting effects in how the soap appears.

The fact that I used coconut milk instead of water in my soap, I suspect I won't achieve that translucency with this batch.

Mango fragrance was added to this batch of coconut milk soap. The mango fragrance is still very evident and hasn't changed or "morphed" since I made this soap three weeks ago. Even though it has been three weeks, this soap is still curing and won't be ready for another 2-3 weeks I suspect.

I sliced a small amount for soap samples this morning and it is still quite soft with slicing. The samples are placed in a bag with a hole cut in it to allow circulation and for the customer to smell the item. I attach one of my business cards and label the name of the soap on the card, then use these little slivers of soap for samples when I send off orders in the mail and when I am a vendor at arts & crafts fairs and Saturday markets.

Although this soap doesn't have some of the bling that other handcrafted soaps have, this one has a subtle beauty, elegance and the fragrance is delightful, the lather is perfect and will be the perfect accompaniment to any bathroom and body care experience.